CBS This Morning

"House of Cards" star Kate Mara and creator Beau Willimon on season two shocker

The second season of the Netflix drama "House of Cards" was released online last week after winning three Emmys. Kevin Spacey
plays an ambitious Washington politician, Francis Underwood. Kate Mara co-stars as a shrewd journalist who
learns how dangerous he can be.

Mara and show's creator, Beau Willimon joined the "CBS
This Morning" co-hosts to discuss the show's success as well as some big
spoilers from the second season.

Mara plays Zoe Barnes, who is a character that is both
loved and hated by fans of the show because of her involvement with Underwood - she carries on an affair with him as he provides her with high-level political intelligence. Mara said that she doesn't mind playing someone
is not necessarily loved by people all the time.

"It makes it much more interesting as an actor to do
things that people are going to roll their eyes at," she said.

Mara also discussed what it was like to work so closely
with Spacey.

"Most people have this sort of picture of him as – and I
sort of did as well before I started working with him – I thought he was going
to be very, very serious, and a little intimidating. And that's not my
experience with him at all," she said. "He's hilarious and with all the
dramatic stuff we had to do together, he kept it light with me and I always
felt really comfortable with him."

(Potential spoiler alert below)

The pair also discussed a major shocker from
the end of the second season's first episode.Mara's character gets killed Spacey's
power-hungry Underwood pushes her
in front of a moving Metro train. Willimon said that they told Mara "from the get-go"
that she would be killed off.

"I always knew that Zoe was going to meet her maker, the
first episode of season two. That had to happen," he said.

Willimon said that it was the natural progression for
Francis to kill Zoe, because one of the questions "House of Cards" asks is how
far Francis will go for what he wants.

"It was very hard to do," he said. "Of course she's so
wonderful as we got closer to do doing it, we reconsidered for a second,
but we stuck to our guns."

Mara said that she did not "take it personally."

The pair also discussed the appeal of the show and why it
is so popular. Even President Obama watches. Mara said she believes it is the great characters.

"I think it's really interesting that a lot of people
find it hard to choose somebody that they think is sort of the hero and the one
that you’re supposed to root for," she said. "But, I think that's really appealing
because it's rare to find that on a show. There's usually the obvious hero
and then the bad guy and I think on 'House of Cards' everyone has this gray
area.'